


I've Come to Test the Timber of My Heart

by prettyasadiagram



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-08
Updated: 2012-10-08
Packaged: 2017-11-15 22:38:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyasadiagram/pseuds/prettyasadiagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles wonders if telling his dad the whole truth and nothing but the truth from here on out would fix anything, or if his dad would always wonder, <em>what if</em>? What if there’s something more, something bigger that Stiles won’t tell him, because he thinks he knows better. And Stiles doesn’t know how to fix that doubt. </p><p>Or, how camping brings the Stilinski boys back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Come to Test the Timber of My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This was spawned by some weird dream that involved coyotes, canyons, cupcakes, camping, and blushing (oh, how that ruins the alliteration and pains me). Sadly, only the camping made it into the fic. 
> 
> Thanks to thatdamneddame for the beta, as per usual.
> 
> Title comes from "Hymn #101" by Joe Pug
> 
> Please do not repost this work in its entirety or share this work on third-party websites such as Goodreads.

When Stiles sees his dad standing bereft in his room, hears him mutter, “Where are you, Stiles,” like asking the ether will provide the answer, it’s like the universe hasn’t finished jerking Stiles around yet, like Gerard’s anger and his own inability to save anyone wasn’t enough, because now he gets to lie to his dad’s face since he can’t sit him down on the couch and say, _here it is, here’s everything_. Not yet, not with his lip bleeding and his eye swelling, not when his dad will go out and kill every last person involved, guilty or not, if he explains what really happened. But here’s his dad, incandescent with protective fury, and Stiles still can’t tell him the truth and it feels like failing all over again. 

So Stiles does what he does best: he talks. He spins a web of bullies from out of town, his own big mouth getting him into trouble; he talks his dad down from pistol-whipping complete strangers, and it looks like he was right about his dad’s desire to inflict some serious violence.

He knows his dad doesn’t believe him, not completely. Oh, he believes that Stiles’s big mouth played a role, but he knows it wasn’t kids from the other team, and he still lets it go, lets Stiles get away with one more lie. 

The look of resignation in his eyes makes Stiles’s heart clench. 

 

+++

 

Stiles is thirteen and his mother is dead and his dad looks at Stiles like he doesn’t know what to do with him. 

For a while, it feels like he’s lost both parents, because his dad can’t look him in the eye and buries himself in work, coming home to sleep but going back to the station to _live_ , and where does that leave Stiles? 

For a while, that’s okay, because he suspects that he’s not an easy child, not with his medication and his tendency to babble out his thoughts just to fill the uneasy silence, so he knows, alright? 

That’s why, when the panic attacks come at night, when he listens carefully in the dark and can’t hear his parents’ laughter and feels incredibly alone, he bites his lip and crouches in the corner, hugging himself tight enough to remind himself that he can still feel.

He keeps them to himself, does his best to hide his late night fears from his dad, because he knows there are bills to pay and things to arrange that he doesn’t understand and criminals to catch, so he wants to do his part, doesn’t want to remind his dad of the things he’s lost. Not if he can avoid it.

 

It isn’t until years later that he understands the look of self-hatred that was on his dad’s face when he came in to check on Stiles that night and found him in his closet, hand clamped over his mouth to stifle any noise, not until he sees it again when he walks into his room with his lip split and his eye swollen. It’s a look of defeat because you couldn’t protect the things you love.

 

+++

 

It’s hard not to feel guilty, when he comes home and sees his dad on the couch, bottle of whiskey and old files on the coffee table, a distant expression on his face as he stares at the TV. It’s not any easier to hide his own hurts, the bruised rib and the shallow cut on his back, and it doesn’t get any better when his dad calls out, “Since you’re home, you want dinner? Haven’t had one together in a while.” 

His dad has clearly been waiting for Stiles; there’s a pan of hamburger helper keeping warm in the oven and the table is already set, but Stiles has been around wolves long enough to know better than to show any weakness, to give any sign of unease. So Stiles looks suspiciously at his dad and grumbles about healthy eating, until his dad pulls out a dish of green beans and says, “See? Totally balanced meal.” 

“And how many orders of fries have you had this week? I smell a guilty conscience.” 

“Shut up and eat, kid, be grateful I even made a vegetable,” his dad huffs, but once the banter is done, there’s this awkward silence and then Stiles is sitting stiffly while his dad asks probing questions.

He does his best to keep up the conversation, but his dad just gets this mournful look with every evasive answer, and Stiles recognizes that look. It’s the one he sees when his dad makes Saturday brunch, because that’s what his mom always did, and Stiles nearly keens because his dad looks like Stiles is almost dead, like his son is out of reach, and Stiles can’t fix it yet. Can’t say, _hey Dad, there’s werewolves in them hills_ , can’t open up, and it’s slowly killing him. 

But his dad doesn’t press, just sighs and says he’s working the late shift, won’t see Stiles until tomorrow afternoon, maybe not till dinner depending on paperwork. 

When Stiles calls out, “OK, seeya, Daddy-o,” his dad shakes his head and grabs his holster off the side table, leaves silently with Stiles still sitting at the table. Stiles looks at the meager dinner and the dirty plates and he puts his head in his hand and breathes, says aloud, “Soon, soon I’ll tell him. I’ll bring Scott as proof. I’ll tell him.”

He just needs to keep it together a little longer, keep the truth close to his chest for another couple of months until he can find the right moment, if one exists, or even just _a_ moment, because his dad deserves better than this. Better than half-started sentences and awkward backpedaling, better than the constant lies that Stiles has to tell just to keep his head above water.

Of course Derek is lying in wait upstairs, pacing back and forth before slamming him up against a wall like it’s sophomore year all over again, like Stiles can’t be trusted. And apparently he can’t, because Derek growls, “You will _not_ tell your dad,” and Stiles just hangs there, looks to the ceiling and asks, “Why not?

When Derek stares him down, says softly, “You know why,” Stiles wonders if telling his dad the whole truth and nothing but the truth from here on out would fix anything, or if his dad would always wonder, _what if_? What if there’s something more, something bigger that Stiles won’t tell him, because he thinks he knows better. And Stiles doesn’t know how to fix that doubt. 

 

(John drives to work and thinks of all the things he didn’t say. How he had that “Call Me Maybe” song stuck in his head the other day; how he almost bought Stiles a leopard print Snuggie because he thought it would be funny; how he’d had a salad of his own volition last week and it wasn’t completely terrible. 

He didn’t tell Stiles that being the sheriff isn’t as easy as it once was, not when the town still remembers Stiles popping up at violent crime scenes, that restraining order, the way everything seemed to center on the son of the sheriff, and how can you trust a man who can’t even control his own kid? But John knows his son, knows that Stiles has a heart of flint, capable of providing light and warmth to those he invites near, and just as quick to cut you open if you hurt someone he loves. 

And he knows that there’s a good reason buried in one of Stiles’s lies, hidden somewhere in the meandering excuses that Stiles pours out like water. He knows he’s probably a bit crazy to think that his seventeen-year-old son knows what he’s doing, especially in the wake of “animal attacks” and missing students, but he knows that he raised a good kid, knows that Stiles isn’t behind it, even if he is smack in the middle of it all. So he waits. Tries to show his son that he can trust his old man, can trust that John will listen and believe, will understand, even if he has to fake it until that’s true.) 

 

+++

 

Stiles remembers a lot from the time right after his mother died, remembers the constant stream of casseroles and how everyone treated him differently, but what he doesn’t remember, is this:

His dad holding him for an hour after he finds him that first time, mid panic attack, rocking the both of them slowly on the floor, murmuring nonsense, telling Stiles to breathe with him, slow and steady. 

His dad tucking him in and standing in the doorway, watching him sleep as he calls his deputy, tells him he’s sorry for calling so late, no, not an emergency, just he needs to take some time off, he’s realized he’s let some things go by the wayside in the wake of… well, you know. 

And this is what Stiles could never know: his dad remembering the late nights, where there was whiskey and the photo album; remembering cleaning his gun once or twice with Stiles asleep upstairs; the way his deputy’s easy, _take care of your own_ , had cut him to the quick, because he hasn’t been, and it’s becoming very clear how badly he has failed.

 

In the morning, when Stiles creeps downstairs and his dad says, “Pack a bag, we’re going camping,” like they used to when his mother would kick them out of the house, saying, “Go, be manly men, commune with nature. Bring me back some stories of your heroics,” Stiles begins to hope.

 

+++

 

For once, Stiles is home and there’s no threat of danger lingering in the forest. There’s nothing out there tonight, nothing to make his heart race or his breath come in short pants, so Stiles doesn’t understand why he’s so restless. He doesn’t know why the thought of peace and safety makes him uncomfortable in his own skin, when in the face of an angry, wolfed-out Derek or the current monster of the week, Stiles’ hands don’t shake and his mind feels clear. 

He’s staring at a lab report when his dad asks what he's doing next weekend, and as far as he knows, there's no werewolf drama planned. Well, except for an inevitable smack down between Jackson and Derek, but he doesn't need to see that again, not with his dad looking a bit hopeful, but more resigned to being denied. So he smiles and shakes his head, “No plans, should I be having plans?"

His dad slowly begins to smile, “I was thinking—you, me, next weekend, camping? Like we used to, you remember,” he trails off, the _before your mom died_ unsaid, but hanging heavy in the silence.

Stiles swallows thickly and pastes a grin on his face, "Yes, definitely. Us plans—those are now my plans."

"Great, I'm just going to—I'll set that up." His dad raps on the doorframe before walking off, still smiling.

 

+++

 

His dad first takes him camping when he’s eight, after Stiles has been politely asked to leave the local Cub Scouts chapter. 

They leave early in the morning, his dad carrying him to the car when the sky is dove-gray and the moon still visible. When he wakes, it’s light and his dad isn’t in the car.

When Stiles stumbles out, his dad grins, “Thought you’d never wake up, kiddo. Ready for breakfast?”

They hike and they swim and Stiles forgets why he had been sad. 

 

+++

 

And maybe it's stupid, there's no reason not to tell Derek he won't be here next weekend, especially since Derek just reported that there’s been activity around the cemeteries and he’s thinking about setting up patrols, and Stiles is usually in charge of research, but Stiles just... casually doesn't. 

He wants his weekend with his dad, doesn’t want to bail and see the utter lack of surprise in his dad’s face. So he doesn't mention it at a pack meeting; he doesn't slip it into his text message conversation with Derek about how much longer Stiles can continue to make wolf jokes before Derek snaps and rips his throat out. 

(Spoiler: Derek says not much longer, but Stiles won't give in that easy.)

Stiles carefully does not think about how some of their exchanges border on flirting, and he does not wonder if Derek realizes that, because acknowledging it makes it real, and Stiles isn’t ready to face that rejection yet.

He does mention his plans to Scott though, just so someone knows and he can say that without lying, but Stiles also knows that even on the best days, Scott's information retention time is really only about 10 minutes, less if Allison is in the room when he's told. Which, in this case, she was.

So really, Stiles has no reason to be surprised when Derek comes bounding out of the woods, half-wolfed out, and pushes Stiles against a tree while his dad is out collecting firewood, but he is. He really is.

 

(When Stiles doesn't show up early to the pack meeting, Derek is at a loss. He usually comes early and badgers Derek with questions he can’t answer, like why Peter could rise under the Worm Moon, or won’t answer, like things about werewolf mating habits. Which, no, just no.

The silence is unsettling. Sometime when he hadn’t been paying attention, Stiles had slipped under his skin, became a constant, a sign that things were still alright, that he wasn’t fucking up too badly. His absence leaves bitter taste in Derek’s mouth, something tinged with unease.

When Stiles is actually late, he's concerned and irritated that he’s concerned and he can’t even ask Scott, because he apparently has plans with Allison, according to the grammatically incorrect text he’d received earlier. 

After a terse meeting made terser without the buffer of Stiles's chatter, Derek runs over to Stiles's house. The house is empty and quiet and smells cold, like no one has been home in all day, and Derek’s stomach clenches, because honestly, if Stiles isn't with Scott, if he isn't bothering Derek, and if he isn't playing WoW in his room, Derek has no idea where he could be. One of his pack is missing, and in his head he hears Stiles chime in, “Wait—I'm pack?”

He calls Stiles. Voicemail.

He texts Stiles: Where are you?

He calls again, five minutes later. “Stiles, answer your damn phone.”

“When I find you, if you aren't in serious danger, I'm going to rip your throat out.”

And then Derek does the one thing he really doesn't want to do. He calls Scott. 

And gets voicemail. “Scott. Call me back. It’s important.”

His phone beeps with a text message: wit allison wat do u want 

Derek sighs; it's not worth the headache. It'll be easier to convince Jackson to get his friend to trace Stiles's phone, even if he has to pretend to be Miguel again.)

 

+++

 

They never go to the same place twice, as far as Stiles can tell. He tried to plot it once, when he’s ten, but since his dad refuses to tell him where they are if he sleeps through check in, says a little mystery will do him good, Stiles doesn’t have all the information. 

It’s always random when they go, just his dad shaking him awake, whispering, “Come on, the parks wait for no man,” the two of them kissing his mom goodbye before slipping out of the house. 

When they go after his mom dies, they don’t go far, don’t leave the radius of what’s familiar. The far side of the preserve is an hour’s drive away from the middling lights of Beacon Hills, and when the stars shine freely in the cloudless night, Stiles feels like he can breathe for the first time since the funeral—safe despite the wide expanse of the sky. 

As the two of them sit on the hood of the Jeep, eventually his dad begins to talk. About meeting his mom in college, how she made him work for that first date and every date after that until he proposed, the way she loved _The Jerry Springer Show_ , how she’d talk to Stiles in Russian, even if he couldn’t understand.

When Stiles begins to cry, his dad keeps talking, tucks him under his arm and doesn’t pause, his voice wrapping around Stiles to keep him from flying apart. 

 

+++

 

Pulling into the park, Stiles realizes why this area looks so familiar. It’s where they went camping after his mom died. The very last time they did this. That his dad would bring him back here now tells Stiles how worried and shaken up his dad is. 

They unpack and set up in silence, and when his dad says he’s going to go find some firewood, Stiles just waves him off and promises not to get himself tangled up in the tent this time. 

His dad barks a short laugh and disappears into the forest. Stiles turns to face the deconstructed tent, wary. He still remembers how his dad almost had to cut him out of it last time he’d tried to set it up alone. 

“Alright, let’s do this,” he mutters to himself, and as he crouches to get started, he hears a twig snap nearby, but not in the direction his dad had taken off in. 

Stiles has time to let out a heartfelt _fuck_ , because he knows that nothing good is about to happen, before something grabs him and shoves him against a tree with what feels like a steel bar behind his neck to keep him still. 

He opens his mouth to yell, when he realizes that he recognizes that fucking growl and cranes his neck to see that yes, it's Derek, half-wolfed out and growling in his face. He pushes back; he hasn't been afraid of Derek in a long time, and he hates that Derek still uses fear as a tatic, as if he’s trying to prove once more that Stiles is still human, that he _needs_ the werewolves to keep him safe more than they need him. “What the hell, dude? Let go of me.”

It’s about this point that his dad comes out of the woods, his face set and the gun in his hands perfectly steady, and says, “Get the fuck off my son.” 

And then he takes in Derek’s red eyes and the claws and the alarming extra body hair, and oh shit, _the claws_ , and he says flatly, “What the fuck is going on.” 

Well, damn.

 

+++

 

Stiles starts high school and joins the lacrosse team, and his life gets busy. Mostly trying to make sure that Scott doesn’t have an asthma attack and die in his quest to make first line, but still. He has grades to keep up and benches to keep warm and Lydia to pine for, so when his dad asks if he wants to go camping one weekend, Stiles doesn’t really think before saying, “Maybe some other time? Scott and I were going to train for lacrosse….”

Of course, the next time is six months from then and the week before his chemistry midterm, and the time after that he honestly just doesn’t want to, but the time after that never comes, and Stiles never remembers to feel bad about it, not until he realizes his only real conversations with his dad these days are in text message format, and by then it’s too late. 

 

+++

 

Derek isn’t helping matters by growling softly while Stiles tries to reassure his dad that everything is fine and please for the love of God, put the gun down, he can explain.

“Explain?” his dad barks a laugh, “How the hell do you explain _that_?” He nods his head toward Derek. 

Stiles shuffles a bit, scrubs a hand over his hair, “Werewolves?”

And that’s how his dad is introduced to the ridiculous charade that is Stiles’s life. 

 

When the gun is put down and the claws are put away and everyone is at least pretending to be calm, Stiles sends Derek home. Not that he thinks Derek actually leaves, but Stiles doesn’t need Derek growling over his shoulder and scaring his dad more than necessary. 

Stiles tries to keep it simple, starts from the beginning, from the ill-advised moonlight jaunt to find Laura’s body, to Peter Hale being a lying liar who lies. He tells his dad about the hunters and surprise-not-dead Peter and the kanima, brushing over his own hurts to highlight to good things, like how Scott actually has faith in himself and Erica doesn’t have to worry about her seizures and Derek keeps them safe, helps them understand this second puberty that he calls a gift. 

But his dad is the sheriff and engages with people as though they’re always lying to him, and he knows there’s more he’s not being told. So he of course he asks, “Did Derek, you know—“and makes punching motions in the air and then gestures at his own face, because verbalizing the reality that someone _beat his kid up_ will never be easy for him. 

And Stiles looks up, startled, “No, God no. That was Gerard.”

“Argent?” His dad asks incredulously. “You’re telling me that Gerard Argent, your school principal, beat you up?” 

“Hey, for an old man he packs a punch—“

“That’s not funny, Stiles.”

“No, I know. But Dad, if I don’t… There’s just so much and I couldn’t—I couldn’t tell you. And that was hard.”

“I just wish you’d trusted me, told me sooner. I could have helped,” he pulls Stiles into a hug. “You could have trusted me.”

“It was never about not trusting you, Dad, not for me. It was about minimizing the damage, keeping you off the hunters’ radar. And it’s not like I could just cast some spell to see how you’d react and then you’d forget, this isn’t _Charmed_ , Dad.”

His dad just stares for a second, “I’m sorry, _Charmed_? What?”

“It was a show, you know, in the late 90s. It was a thing!”

“Yeah, I know what _Charmed_ is. It just doesn’t seem like your kind of thing.”

“Well, after you know, _werewolves_ , I looked at it as research,” Stiles shrugs.

His dad looks doubtful, “Research. Right.…”

Stiles nudges his dad’s shoulder, “So—any questions yet? Comments? Concerns?”

“Oh, I’m making a list, trust me. But first, why was Derek all, you know—,” and he makes a growly face and clawing motions, “Attacking you, I mean.”

“Derek wasn’t ‘attacking’ me; he just has communication issues. Serious communication issues. We’re working on them. And um, well, the ‘attacking’ would probably be due to the,” Stiles pulls out his phone, “seven missed calls and twenty unanswered texts.” His dad gives him a look. “What? This was supposed to be father/son bonding time!”

“And radio silence equals danger?”

“These days? Yes.”

His dad pauses, looking pained, “I have to ask, are you and Derek, well, you know…. It’s just that—He’s a lot older than you son, and I’m just concerned—“

“What? Oh God, no. There’s nothing going on—“

“It’s just that I saw the way you looked at him, and—“

“No, Dad. I had thought, maybe, but I’m pretty sure it’s a solid not going to happen.”

“I don’t know—you didn’t see the way he looked at you when you got between me and him.”

“You’ve been out of the dating game too long, father mine; you’re confusing everything with sentiment. That look was probably one of anger and irritation.”

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

Stiles pushes his father off the log, laughing, before they settle into an easy silence.

As the two of them sit there, bathed in the flickering light of the fire, eventually Stiles begins to talk again, telling his dad how the pack is helping Derek renovate his house, albeit against his will; that Isaac is working with Scott at the vet’s and he seems lighter, somehow; how Stiles feels like he finally belongs somewhere. 

And in the woods, with the moon steadily rising and Stiles’s voice a constant murmur, the Stilinski boys begin to heal.


End file.
